Riding on a New York City subway, Karl Marx and Max Weber found themselves sitting side-by-side one evening. Around them, workers of all classes and occupations were returning to their homes after a long work week. For Marx and Weber, this occasioned an opportunity to discuss the notion that capitalism, by its very nature, leads to an ever-increasing sense of alienation and class antagonism.
Marx: So, Max, here we are, surrounded by the very productive forces (the workers) whose oppression I have long considered to be one of the most terrible artifacts of that capitalism that you so admire (Shaw, 1978). Look at them, Max, look at them! Surely you see that these laborers, "who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodityaand are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market" (Marx & Engels, 1986, p. 87).
Weber: Karl, I have written in many places that I have (like you) a passion for freedom and a disdain for power and dominance disguised as authority (Diggins, 1996). But you -- who have so admirably exhibited a fine sense of history and its relentless movement - fail to ask the critical question that addresses the concept of alienation: Why does the worker work (Diggins, 1996)?
I do not deny that capitalism as both a market system and an ethos creates classes; I do believe, however, that men and women work to satisfy their own needs, regardless of the position in which they find themselves (Weber, 1976). Their "alienation," as you characterize it, has roots that are more profound than the market system or the class system.
Marx: I have said that workers in your capitalist system are appropriated as commodities by the owners and the managers of industrial empires (Marx, 1964). I believe that the general nature of private property leads invariably to the alienation of the worker (the real producer) from the fruits of his labor. By ensuring
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